Shimazaki Masaki (島崎 正樹, 1834–1886) was a Japanese gōnō, honjin master, student of kokugaku, and Shinto priest.

The young Masaki taught himself to read and write with great difficulty using the few books available in the village, often outdated and poorly copied manuscripts, in both Japanese and Classical Chinese.

[1] After an introduction by Hazama Hidenori of Nakatsugawa, Masaki became an exceptionally dedicated disciple of the nativist Shintō theology of Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane under the tutelage of Majima Sei'an, a student of the samurai-scholar Aoyama Kagemichi of Naegi Domain, the first Hirata disciple in the region.

[4] The theory of Hirata Atsutane, a fundamentalist, that the importation of foreign ideas like Buddhism in ancient times had corrupted a pristine, theocratic Japanese nation powerfully influenced Masaki for the rest of his life.

Alongside the other Hirata disciples of Mino and Naegi, Masaki was involved in the promotion of traditional Shintō funeral practices in opposition to the officially mandated Buddhist alternative.

Though he wanted to travel to Kyoto to assist the other Hirata disciples in their agitation there, he stayed in Magome due to a sense of responsibility to his family and the people of the village.

He was arrested immediately charged with the crime of impiety, but was not penalized beyond a minor fine due to the court's assessment of the motivations for his act.

In 1875, as part of the government's expulsion of Hirata influence, Masaki was rusticated by the Department of Religion to the remote Minashi Shrine to serve as a resident priest.

According to Shimazaki Tōson, it was during this time that Masaki came to greatly respect Tanaka Ōhide, the foremost kokugaku scholar of the Hida Mountains.

Following repeated personal setbacks, difficulty with alcoholism, and alienation from family and neighbors, Masaki was ultimately driven insane by despair.

Thereafter he became increasingly deranged while his health rapidly declined due to starvation, hypothermia, and exposure to his own feces and urine.

Our insignificant bodies merely guard this undertaking, as looking upward we serve our parents, and looking downward we nurture our wives and children.

Those who preserved their sense of justice and honesty, those who remained loyal and steadfast throughout, those who admonished the throne though they died for it - it is through their example that we may observe antiquity.

It is through those who remained apart in order to discipline themselves; it is through those who persevered in the face of danger even to the point of death; it is through those who made wise plans and succeeded, as well as through those who, when they saw that their heroic designs were untenable, were able to revise them.